Blood Writing
by Senri
Summary: A collection of Blade of the Immortal Shorts. 1: Anotsu, those who made him, those he made. 2: Makie and Rin. 3: Anotsu, Rin, the river. 4: Anotsu/Rin, premonition. 5: sorta Doa/Rin - remains. Contains FEMSLASH.
1. Blood Writing

It starts with Kuroi- Kuroi and that cool spring morning on the porch, where Anotsu grinned and said "Yeah. That's the way I want it." He's thirteen and hungry for blood and he wants to prove himself. Kuroi isn't an old man yet, and he only has one dead head attached to his shoulder. He's a poet and a murderer many times over- ink catches with blood under his fingernails. He smirks widely and ruffles Anotsu's hair into tangled disarray. "Then that's what you'll get," he replies.

It continues with Makie, and the raw stinking bodies of one hundred slaughtered wild dogs. Anotsu gasps at them, stumbles, kicks a coil of intestine away from his foot. The stink of blood rises in the air and makes his head light. Flies are buzzing everywhere. He gazes across the sea of red and envies the girl that spilled it: he wants to _be_ her; he wants to reach the pinnacle that she is balanced upon. It pushes him onwards throughout the years, more so than even the bitter words of his grandfather and his own thirst for justice. He attempts poetry for her, once or twice: like Kuroi. But he has no grace with words, he thinks- all he has is grace with the sword, and that grace comes all too slowly. It seems his destiny is to live with blood under his fingernails only. He pledges himself to strength, and puts away the scrolls and ink to be forgotten.

Rin makes the next part- at her own beginning, the event that birthed her future, where she curled weeping in the corner as Anotsu's hungry men took their fill of her mother. Rin makes the end: the angry girl flinging daggers through the air, the girl who resolves to bite off her own tongue rather than suffer his touch. The girl who hunches and chokes out sobs she can't control. The girl who stands over him with sword unsheathed, and cries again. Always always crying- what a waste of water. This is like the end to the story, a pure young girl ready to slay the killer of her parents. Anotsu smiles at the thought, puffs breath sharply off his lips and watches red speck the ground in front of him. Rin's changed too. He's proud to have had some influence in forming- what she is. The angry-compassionate-not-very-good-at-fighting-truly girl who isn't that much like him, no matter what he said once about them being the same.

She swipes the tears and snot off her face, using the sleeve of her pretty red kimono. She's furious that he's forced her into this, Anotsu can tell. He's glad she's reluctant (remembering all that casual cruelty, and how pointless it was in the end. At least Rin's not like that).

If Anotsu can make sure another person doesn't grow up to be like him, he'll be happy.

END

8/26/05

Edited 9/2/05


	2. Mirrors

Genre: Angst  
Warnings: T  
Notes: Makie and Rin. Neither of the men they want will ever see them the way they want to be seen.

* * *

Makie walks away from blood smiling and empty.

She cannot bring herself to go back and be Kagehisa's weapon - she cannot force herself back into the brothel, to spread her legs for a few coins. It is not enough. She is drifting away - what to do, what to do, with a woman who is a prodigy fighter but can hardly bring herself to kill, a beautiful whore who at this moment, in this time, sickens at the thought of being touched?

Poor Rin, poor herself. Kagehisa has men placed about, who sniff up information like hounds, so she knows a bit about little girl Rin, whose parents were killed two years ago, on her birthday, and she knows that Manji has killed one hundred men (more now) and that he once had a sister who is now dead. She'd thought she could bring herself to end his life until...

Until Rin, flinging her body across his, watching her with terrified, determined eyes. So young, and yet - Makie can see the way she looks at him, her bodyguard. See how her body leans towards his like a tree towards the sun. See craving -

And see how Manji doesn't notice, or rejects the wanting in her. How he passes over the girl's proto-lust to ruffle her hair like she really was his sister. Does Rin look like his sister, then? Makie wouldn't be surprised if she did. She can see that Manji has some urge to protect. She can see that he is not truly unkind, but does not truly understand his charge either. And it does not surprise her that Rin aches so, inside.

Poor girl, poor herself. They both love the men who will never see them in the way they want. She will remain Kagehisa's coveted weapon. Rin will stay as Manji's surrogate younger sister, a shadow of the girl he couldn't protect at the pivotal moment.

Makie could almost laugh, thinking about the irony of it - instead she walks on the long dusty road, strumming her shamisen. The sun is high in the sky, a flat round circle, the dry color of blood, and dust cakes her tongue so that her mouth sets hard as stone. Silence sweeps around, closes in, settles down across her shoulders as an old familiar friend and when night falls down she does not stop but keeps on walking until she loses herself in the dark.

END

12/18/05


	3. Short Road to the Rubicon

Genre: Gen  
Warnings: K  
Notes: For 31-days on livejournal, prompt: "the woman in me shouts out". Spoilers for events during/after book 13. Rin stands by a river and feels the future coming.

* * *

The sky was fringed with blue. Rin kept her eyes on that, helping Anotsu into the boat, scathingly embarrassed for both of them. Striving to ignore his shamefully weak grip on her shoulder, then her forearm. The air was muggy. She thought it might rain.

Anotsu dropped back to recline on the wood with a raspy sigh. He was safe to look at again – as safe as ever.

He was very pale; mangy, thin. He looked like a wolf starved down to a cur. He'd lost muscle mass. Probably couldn't fight worth a…. worth a damn. His narrow eyes were fixed on her. An expression of futile anger and thwarted machismo. Rin locked her eyes onto the designs fringing his robe and settled Head Hammer down alongside him, within reach but not touching. A gesture only; it wasn't as if he had the strength to use it.

She stood beside the boat a moment, shifting from foot to foot. Picked at one grimy fingernail. "I'll buy some rice," she said. Talking to Anotsu was worthless, scarcely different from talking to herself, but it comforted her nonetheless. It assured her that he wasn't a phantom yet. "There's not much money left so I don't know how much I can get. Of anything." She tried to bite it down but the words squeezed from the corner of her mouth: "I'll try not to be gone too long."

Only slow, tortured breathing from the boat: heavy, irregular as an injured dog. Then a gasp and a long wheeze: Rin jumped, wondering if he'd die right there, the thought too sudden to crush. She leaned over and checked him and saw with a flare of lightheadedness that he was fine. He was laughing. A smirk twisted his lips, spit gathered at the corners of his mouth. Rin dropped back, stomped away.

I hate you, she thought. Damn snake-eyes. What a mess he'd dragged her into. She held his life in her hands and couldn't take it. It wasn't even his strength holding her at bay now. It would just be too pathetic to kill him as he was. Dishonorable, too much in keeping with the tenets of the philosophy he followed, of victory at any cost. It would be so easy, but she didn't want to have her vengeance this way.

The trek over the mountain had clouded her formerly clear vision. It was confusing, to see the man underneath the leader, and then to see weakness overcoming the man. There wasn't too much she could actually do for him. Rin's medicinal skills were mostly limited to herbal work and doctoring Manji, who was an easy patient, really. Even if she gave her best to Anotsu it might not be enough. Either way, she'd keep her word, and watch over him until his end, whether it came sooner or later.

She was only a few paces on the path when she stopped and looked anxiously back. The entire day felt precariously balanced; the back of Rin's arms and neck itched as if stung by the cold breath of spirits. The boat sat innocently by the river. It still felt like rain.

At last Rin turned and continued towards the town. Whatever happened, they needed food, and Anotsu was not a man who feared being alone with his ghosts.

….

_7.19.06_

_Edited 9.12.08_


	4. Premonition

Genre: Gen  
Warnings: T  
Notes: Anotsu/Rin – premonition.

* * *

He calls her "my child" because she is his. When she had fourteen years he entered her world, and she set the bearings of her life on him.

It was then, Kagehisa realizes, but only much later. Then, that day, that hour, the pivotal point. From there, their roles were set. Like it or not, Asano Rin was destined to pursue him. Fine red threads bind them; smallest finger to smallest finger, heel to heel, heart to heart. Such a tangle neither of them can move without tripping the other up. Asano Rin is as much a product of his blade as she is the fruit of her mother's womb and her father's seed. Asano Rin is as much a product of his blade as are the corpses he's left behind.

Sometimes, momentarily, Kagehisa considers a conundrum: whether or not he is a madman. And then he discards it as fancy, puts it out of his head, feeling safer because he still questions. A sane man with a keen mind can see the future, can mold the present to follow the paths he desires.

Even the influence of the most unpredictable variable can be quantified. Measured. Accounted for. Or he believes that, and hangs on to that belief for dear life.

Kagehisa is used to being chased. There is always something nipping at his ankles, washing hot, rank breath over his heels. Sometimes it manifests as _shame_ or _hypocrisy_. Lately, _disgrace_ and _failure_ make themselves known as well.

Something is always nagging at him. Lately, often, if he turns around and _something_ turns out to have dark braids and reproachful eyes, he is never even really surprised.

Asano Rin gets bolder. Not that she was ever prone to holding her tongue.

Asano Rin gets smarter. As if she wasn't clever enough to be annoying already.

She recurs, like a bad cough.

("Gentlemen, if she troubles you," he once said, "I leave your course of action to you.")

Kagehisa sometimes closes his eyes and wishes for peace. Or if not that, ignorance. They're close enough to the same thing. If he was stupid, if he was oblivious, he'd be a happier man.

He has a duty to the country. To his fighters. He can't afford to be either.

Asano Rin pushes and pries and never stops talking. She follows him like a vengeful ghost.

What you make you own, Kagehisa knows. And what you make you owe. To do right by.

He hasn't done right by her. At this point, he doubts he ever will.

He'll let her follow him all she likes. Maybe that will count for something. The future spreads out before him, a scintillating, razor-edged road of ice - put a foot wrong and he'll lose it. He can't afford distractions. Extraneous, sentimental things.

She'll plunge after him, he knows. Put it up to foresight or destiny or predictable pigheaded stubbornness. He can almost feel her moving, feel the sift and shake of red thread.

Responsibility chokes him up. Forces him to move in careful fits and starts.

What you make you own. What you make you owe. He calls her "my child"; she's been molded by his model, within, without, since the day his sword spattered her father's blood.

He'll do his best to do right by her, for some unknown value of right.

/end

6.16.08


	5. Remains ::FEMSLASH::

Genre: Angst

Genre: Angst  
Warnings: T  
Notes: sorta Doa/Rin – remains. This means some almost-FEMSLASH, avoid it if you can't stomach it. Also, spoilers if you haven't met Doa and Isaku yet.

--

Rin knows they're not really reaching for each other. Doa stumbles in from the rainstorm, soaked and mud-smeared and frantic, holding out her hands, and Rin takes them; but Rin knows they're not the hands she wants to take, and she's not the person Doa wants to take them.

Doa's skin is surprisingly soft and fine, for the vicious little scrapper she is. Rin helps her take off her robe and herds her to go take a bath, and Doa sits like a little child with her face in her hands. Layers of dirt scrub away. The skin beneath is paler than it has any right to be, not swarthy.

"Poor thing," Rin whispers to her, because Doa seems so vulnerable right now, so willing to take comfort. Under other circumstances she'd never dare. "Doa, Doa, it's all right now, sshhh."

Would this be her life, Rin wonders, if she had a sister to be orphaned with? A younger sister to take care of. Maybe they'd have made a living weaving reed mats and fixing sandals and Rin would never have met Manji or pursued her revenge. Maybe they'd have found comfort in each other and the thought of obtaining justice for themselves would never have crossed their minds.

Doa seems almost like a spirit, something that should be flickering around the fields, walking paths at dusk, leading travelers astray and bestowing bad and good luck according to her whim. Definitely not someone sisterly. But Doa's face, her posture, everything, it demands comfort the way a babe demands to suckle at it's mother's breast.

Rin takes the hot little hands tightly in hers and uncertainly lets Doa draw close. The shoulders beneath her arm are tight with muscle but not as broad as they should be, and the skin of Doa's back is unreal with how smooth it is, not broken by scars. Her hair is short and dripping, not twisted up in a tail and tickling at her skin.

Rin closes her eyes and pretends. Doa isn't who she's reaching for, and she's pretty sure she isn't who Doa is seeking. But they have each other now. Beggars can't be choosers.

/end

6.16.08


End file.
